


While the Cat's Away

by marysutherland



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, Canon LGBTQ Female Character, F/F, F/M, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:18:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate and Irene are on the run; Sarah and John are going for a run. And Sherlock could be anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summertime Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Written for two [Sherlockmas Summer Vacay](http://sherlockmas.livejournal.com/) prompts. This chapter is: "Irene/Kate. It's already a hot summer day, but Irene would like to make it even hotter."
> 
> Many thanks for betaing and advice for this part to [Kalypso_V](http://kalypso-v.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Note: this chapter is complete in itself, but I will be posting a second related chapter tomorrow, based on a different prompt.

It's high summer in Karachi and wearyingly hot; when Kate picks up Irene at Jinnah International Airport, she makes sure she has an air-conditioned car. She's hired a driver as well; she doesn't fancy chauffeuring duties among the appalling traffic jams.

Irene settles wearily back in her corner of the car and points to the driver.

"Is he...?"

"One of ours," Kate says, and leans forward, smiling, to announce to the driver:

"Abdul, this is Ms Schneider, whom you'll be kidnapping tomorrow."

Abdul turns his head, gives a broad grin and a wave of his hand, and then returns to a running commentary on the stupidity of the motorists around him.

"You think he'll be OK?" Irene asks.

"He's pretty reliable," Kate replies. It's the old dilemma: it's easy to find criminals, but how do you know you can trust them not to sell _you_ out? "The other three are his relatives, and he vouches for them. Four should be plenty for this. They don't have to snatch you from the street, after all."

In eighteen hours "Diane Schneider" is going to set off for a meeting to discuss off-shoring her firm's call centre. She's never going to arrive at it. Her terrified PA will alert both the American and British embassies. By the time they work out that this isn't a normal kidnapping, the video will be ready to send...

"What about Sherlock? Is he coming?" Irene asks softly, and Kate tries not to groan.

"I've left messages, but there's been no reply." 

"Did you explain what we needed him to do?"

" _Yes_." But maybe she hadn't sounded desperate enough, she thinks, even as she tells Irene: "We don't _need_ him to help. We've fooled his brother before."

"Which is why he'll be even more suspicious this time," Irene says. "If Mycroft Holmes accepts the video, the CIA will as well. It'll be over; we'll be safe. But Sherlock's better on the inside helping us than on the outside looking for flaws..."

"There won't be any." But there always are, Kate knows. And Irene's confidence in her own judgement has been shaken ever since she lost her camera phone. Since Sherlock outwitted her and sent her out to die. That's the real reason she wants him to help her, of course. To prove that, even now, she has a claim on him. 

It's always been the winning that matters to Irene, not how many male egos she has to flatter to get there. She strip-mined Moriarty for his secrets, even while fluttering her eyelashes at him and pretending she needed his opinions on Sherlock's sexual tastes. If they're desperate, she's picked up enough for a fall-back option. Kate will return to Britain to get on the trail of a journalist called Katherine Reilly. Irene thinks Moriarty may be planning to use her to plant hostile stories about Sherlock in the tabloids, and Mycroft would surely be interested to hear about _that_. But if they can just make this plan work, there's no need for anything more. They'll be safe and the running can stop at last, before it breaks them both.

Irene is jet-lagged; inadequate dabs of Diane Schneider's concealer are failing to hide the dark circles under her eyes. She's had ten days criss-crossing America, breaking the trail before picking up the Schneider identity. When they reach the Sheraton, Kate has to nudge her awake to get her out of the car. Abdul carries their luggage in, but even in the minute till they reach the hotel lobby, Kate can feel the sweat building on her own skin.

All her extra padding doesn't help, of course. She may be dressed modestly in long sleeves and trousers, but there's nothing modest about "Karen Bradley" in her platinum blonde wig and fake bosoms. It's Ms Schneider's PA who draws the attention, not the pale and unstylish brunette beside her. The fine art of distraction yet again.

Since Diane Schneider has a sharp eye for a deal – as a gossipy Karen has already told half the staff – they're sharing a twin bedroom. Kate helps Irene unpack, and then tells her: "If you want to have a rest, I can go out for a bit."

"Phone me if you hear from Sherlock," Irene says, sitting on her bed, head bowed down, and Kate nods. She picks up her special travel bag, and then, as she's walking out of the door, Irene straightens and says: "I brought you a little present."

Kate turns and Irene has a rectangular dark-red box in her hand. _Jewellery_ , she thinks with amused pleasure. It's Irene's most frequent way of rewarding her, but when she opens the box, it's not the normal delicate necklace. Instead, Kate finds two substantial bracelets, shiny green segments held together with gold fittings.

"Jade?" she asks.

Irene nods, and says: "Put them on."

They're far too big for Kate's slender wrists and she wonders for a moment how Irene got her measurements so wrong. Till Irene, smiling, says: "They're arm-rings. Roll up your sleeves."

Kate does so and Irene fastens the clasps carefully round Kate's forearms. Against the fake tan of her skin, they seem to glow, and she suddenly thinks of whatever superhero it was who had bracelets that could repel bullets. Wonder Woman, perhaps? She could do with super powers now, but even though the arm-rings aren't to her normal taste, they do look good, make her feel like some kind of exotic princess. She realises Irene is rolling her sleeves back down again.

"I don't want anyone else to see them," Irene says. "I want you to be wearing them and nobody else to know that you are. So that no-one knows how precious you are to me."

Irene always wants to conceal things; Kate's used to that by now. And she has to admit the perverse thrill of a private, hidden gift, as if she is really a princess – or Wonder Woman – in disguise. No-one will guess the secret beneath the concealing arms of her blouse, unless they are close enough to touch her, hold her. As Irene may hold her, touch her later. It's a good thought to treasure as she walks out into the corridor, leaves Irene to rest.

***

As Abdul drives Kate to her preferred shopping mall, she Googles the arm-rings. Irene expects her to know the value of everything that she or anyone else wears, to read a person's status from their clothes and accessories. She knows the jade will be expensive, but it's still a surprise to discover that she has a thousand dollars worth of jewellery on each arm. For a moment she feels a glow of pleasure, and then a shudder runs through her that's not just due to the car's air-conditioning. It's not simply a token of affection that's Irene given her; it's an escape route. The arm-rings can easily be pawned or sold for enough money to enable Kate to leave Karachi, if the worst comes to the worst. If something goes wrong, she can make a run for it immediately, whether or not Irene's with her. It's at once a reassuring and a terrifying thought. Irene is looking after her still, but she may not always be around to do that.

But it doesn't matter, because now it's Kate's turn to look after Irene, to make sure the kidnapping works. Once she's been dropped off at the mall, she retreats to a corner she's used on previous occasions; the store room of a shop that the shopkeeper keeps conveniently tucked away from prying eyes. She enters as a rather over-blown western Amazon. She leaves, ten minutes later, as an unremarkable Pakistani man, blonde wig and padded bra safely stowed away in the travel bag. With blue eyes and a few streaks of mascara giving her a touch of five o'clock shadow, she can pass for a northern youth, and that too explains why she speaks not in Sindhi or even Urdu but broken English. Irene's taught over her the years to impersonate a Western man; it needs less adaptation than she expected to move with the swagger of a Pashtun. She's learning her way round the city and she has a wicked little knife strapped inside her baggy trousers; if Abdul or his friends try and make trouble during the kidnap, she's going to go down fighting to save Irene.

Before she leaves the store room, she switches her iPhone off; even though almost no-one knows her number, she doesn't want any distractions. Still no message from Sherlock, and she's torn between pleasure and worry at that. _She_ wants to be the one arranging Irene's death, but if he can shorten the odds, she mustn't refuse his help. She wishes once again she knew exactly what he feels about Irene. And that she didn't know what Irene feels about him.

She can't remember Irene being _fascinated_ by a man before. It's not just his brains, Kate thinks; Irene's made a lot of very clever men do some very stupid things over the years. And for all Sherlock's looks, Irene's physical preference has always been for women. It's not even the possible asexuality that seems to be the draw; Irene's had asexual clients before now, knows how to administer a beating in a thoroughly non-erotic way.

***  
 _September 2010_

_He's not asexual and he's interested in me_ , Irene says, after her first meeting with Sherlock. Kate listens muzzily, her head throbbing from the after-effect of concussion. She'd presumed the detective and his little doctor friend were a couple, but Irene's seen more of them and she's seldom wrong about people's tastes.

"So are you going to seduce him?" she asks.

"Oh no," Irene purrs. "He'll expect that. But he's a romantic at heart; a man who wears a coat like that has to be. Give him a puzzle to solve and a damsel in distress and I'm sure to hook him."

Irene talks on, explaining her moves, the intricate web that will lure in not only Sherlock but his brother as well. Kate lets the words wash over her, feeling too weary to argue. It's never any use arguing with Irene about her plans anyhow.

***

If Irene's plan had worked Kate wouldn't be here now, walking out of the mall and into what feels like a steam room in the street outside. A polluted, noisy steam room, that leaves her throat itching and her ears aching. She's been trying to build up her stamina and she can get a bus most of the way, but the journey she plans will still be exhausting. 

It's an odd thing to be wandering round like this when they have four and a half million pounds in the bank, but the money's no use if they don't live to spend it. Five million pounds for one decrypted e-mail; when Moriarty had arranged the transfer, Kate had spent fifteen minutes checking and rechecking the account, convinced that the noughts would somehow evaporate at a second glance. What if Irene had stopped then, had run away from Sherlock once he'd solved her problem for her? Once Kate had texted her to say that Moriarty had paid up?

Stupid to wonder what might have been. Irene has always been a risk-taker, never gone for the safe option in the five years Kate has known her. Once she'd bested Sherlock, she'd upped the stakes as usual, gambled successfully on being able to break Mycroft Holmes. But Sherlock had then broken _her_. Irene's never told Kate exactly what happened at their last meeting and Kate knows better than to ask for details. But somehow Sherlock outwitted Irene and stole the phone that was her only protection. And then sent her out to her death, the heartless bastard.

Well, they're not dead yet, and Kate's doing her best to ensure they stay that way. The kidnapping is the key thing; they have only one chance to get that to work. If the execution video doesn't look convincing enough first time round, they can always reshoot it, and the body double for Irene's corpse is already lurking in a convenient mortuary, along with a very well-bribed pathologist. But if anyone spots that the kidnapping's a sham, they'll have to abort the plan and get out of Pakistan immediately. 

Which is why, every day since Abdul told her about it, a disguised Kate has been back to the disused warehouse in Korangi they'll use as a hideout, checked that it's still secure, that none of the roads along which the car will drive looks blocked or unusable. When she started to walk round the district she felt self-conscious, even though she knew that wandering around uncertain where she was could be excused as the act of a confused country lad. But now she strides confidently through the nearby streets, dodging the heaps of rubbish as she checks out yet another possible escape route if the police do track them down.

It's such attention to detail that makes the difference between success and failure; Irene's taught her that. It's not the first time that Kate's planned a fake kidnapping at Irene's command; you need a good grasp of logistics to be a domme's PA. It is the first time she's hoping that none of the men participating will get his rocks off from the thrill of it all.

***

The trickiest part, she decides a couple of hours later, is going to be getting back into the Sheraton. But it's time she proved that her acting skills really do make her a convincing man, that she can fool even people who have seen her repeatedly. The problem, she realises, as she gets off a bus on Club Road, is that she's hot and grubby and doesn't look like the sort of man who belongs in a five-star hotel. Still, a week studying other Westerners in the city gives her an idea. As she heads towards the hotel's entrance, passing the abnormally green grass of the front gardens, she pulls out her iPhone and dials Irene's number.

"Who is it?" Irene's voice is low and neutral.

"Tom, it's Olly," Kate announces in an upper-class English bray. And then "Olly" is demanding his friend's room number and sweeping confidently past the doorman as he does so. Just some eccentric toff, who's done a bit of slumming it with the natives and now wants to get back to home comforts.

Kate enthusiastically keeps up Olly's phone conversation as she walks through the hotel, hearing the occasional snigger from Irene. Because Olly is not Kate's own invention but a take-off of a man they once knew. The second son of an earl, whom Kate was going to marry, before Irene came along. Before Kate took the biggest gamble of _her_ life and followed an adventuress onto the road.

She's on the fourth floor now, and there's no-one around, so she announces, "Ciao, Tom" and ends the call. Then she knocks out the familiar call sign on Irene's door: two rapid knocks, a pause, another short knock and then a longer one. The Morse code for IA. She has her own keycard, of course, but it never does to surprise a woman who's as handy with a weapon as Irene is.

But when the door opens, it's Kate that gets the surprise. Because there, in all her scarlet-lipped and elegant glory, is The Woman.

*** 

_August 2006_

"I'm The Woman," Irene tells her, the night that Kate comes to her house in Sloane Square, "but she's not me. She's just a role. If it's her you want, you should leave now."

"It's you I want," Kate replies, as she gazes hungrily into those huge blue eyes. "Oliver...how can I marry him when it's _you_ I'm thinking about all the time?"

Irene smiles then, as her fingers brush across the thin cotton of Kate's Jil Sander shirt, tracing the contours of her nipples. "I know what you need, Katherine Winter. Come with me and I'll give it to you." Her hand reaches down, skilfully working Kate's emerald engagement ring off her hand and dropping it into her own shirt pocket. "Don't worry. Oliver will know better than to ask for it back."

And Kate smiles back as she realises just how dangerous being with The Woman might be.

*** 

Irene isn't The Woman to Kate any more. Kate's seen behind the scenes too many times to get a thrill from that persona now; she and Irene play different games when they're alone.

_So why is she back_ , Kate thinks, even as Irene says: "Come in, Miss Winter. I've been wondering where you'd got to." Her tone is icy, disappointed. Kate feels a shiver run through her as she enters the bedroom, but it's not from Irene's words. Irene must have put the air-conditioning up to maximum and Kate can feel the sweat on her skin turning into chilly beads. She feels gangly and awkward in what's basically a pair of men's pyjamas, especially when Irene reaches up and pulls her turban off, revealing Kate's cropped brown hair, dull from repeated dyeing. Irene, in contrast, looks flawless, her glossy hair in an updo, her slim body encased in a linen sheath dress.

"On your knees, over there," Irene orders, pointing to a spot near the window, and as Kate looks deep into those familiar, gorgeous eyes, she sees something like worry there. She obeys almost automatically, her mind racing. Domming is all about power and Irene's probably feeling vulnerable. Maybe she needs this, one last time of being in complete control. Creating a space in which she calls all the shots.

The kneeling is one part of that, giving Irene a height advantage she normally lacks. At least here in a posh hotel the thick green carpet is easy on Kate's knees. Now comes the next tool of Irene's power; she's taking out a short leather riding crop from its travelling case. She won't hit Kate; that's against their private rules. But Kate abruptly decides that this afternoon Irene can have whatever else she needs; anything to get them through the next twenty-four hours.

"I gave you a present, Kate," Irene says, coming over to stand in front of her, "and then you promptly vanish. What have you been up to?"

"I haven't–"

"You've been up to your old tricks, haven't you? Dressing up as a man, sneaking off without me."

"I can explain–" Kate begins, and she can feel herself falling into the role, the outside world beginning to retreat from view. Her mind starting to close down into simple binaries: has she been good or bad? Will The Woman be pleased with her or not?

"Silence!" The looped end of Irene's crop strokes down one side of Kate's face. "I don't want to hear your lies. When you went out, did you meet someone?"

"Yes," Kate whispers.

"Speak up, girl." Irene would have made a terrifying teacher.

"Yes, Miss Adler." The riding crop moves back a few inches, ready to strike. Even though Kate knows that Irene won't use it, a primitive instinct is leaking into her now; she's going to be hit, she's going to be hurt. The prickle of irrational fear that makes her breath come faster. Add that to the chill of the room and the pressure on her tired legs, just starting to tremble, and her body's already overloaded with stress.

Which is part of the point. She can hear Irene's cool voice in her head now: _the misattribution of arousal_. Your body experiences the symptoms of fear – sweaty palms, a rapid pulse – and your mind misinterprets it as erotic arousal. Repeat that stimulus enough, though, and it's no longer a misinterpretation, because the fear itself becomes a turn-on.

Irene knows all these psychological tricks, how to exploit them. Knows exactly how a client will react, how Kate herself–

"Stop day-dreaming, Miss Winter," Irene says, and the tip of the crop is on Kate's other cheek now. "Why did you go out? Did I give you permission to?"

"No."

"No, what?" 

"No, Miss Adler."

"I employ you as my PA to do a job. Not to run around Karachi chasing after men. I saw the way you looked at Abdul in the car."

Irene sounds so convincing that Kate finds herself dizzily wondering if she is guilty of something, even though she knows it's all just an illusion.

"I didn't–" She stops as the crop brushes her lips.

"Silence, I said." At the back of Kate's mind, the part of her brain that is rapidly reverting to the terrors of a schoolgirl, she thinks that it's not _fair_ that Irene asks her questions and then gets cross when she answers them.

"Did you go out to meet a man?" Irene asks and Kate shakes her head, feeling the leather loop against her dry lips. Then it moves down her face, heading for her exposed throat, above the collar of her kameez. _To strike or to caress_ , Kate wonders, wishing it was Irene's scarlet-tipped fingers on her.

"A woman?" Irene barks, and Kate looks up at her in surprise. "Did you go out to meet a woman?"  
Kate starts to shake her head and Irene's crop catches her very gently under the chin.

"Don't lie to me, I know you did," Irene says in a quiet, tense voice. "You're thinking about her even now. About her, not me, and you're getting wet at the thought of that, aren't you? Of kissing her, of your hands on her body."

"No," Kate protests, "there's no-one else, there's no-one but you." Even though she knows it's a trick, some part of her can't help responding to Irene's faked jealousy. She waits for Irene to tell her to be silent, but they're clearly beyond that now. She's no longer a naughty schoolgirl or a negligent employee, but a cheating lover.

"What's her name?" Irene says, and Kate replies breathlessly:

"There's no-one."

Irene looks down at her for a minute, and then walks away, leaving Kate still kneeling. Kate doesn't look round; that's cheating and Irene might decide to blindfold her. Instead she stares at the blonde wood chair that's in her field of vision, calculating how one could best tie someone to it. Furniture has never been the same to Kate since she's known Irene.

With the thick carpet, it's hard to work out exactly what Irene is doing by sound alone, though she must still be somewhere in the bedroom. And then there's a sudden additional silence that tells Kate exactly what's she up to; she's just turned the air-conditioning off. As Kate surreptitiously stretches her now aching thigh muscles, she realises she'll soon be right in the path of the sunlight that's streaming in through the window. Without the air-conditioning, she's going to boil alive, the way she did out on the streets.

"Tell me her name," Irene says reappearing in front of her, and adjusting the curtains so that she will remain in the shade. Even so, a few minutes of this heat and Irene will be suffering too, unsightly patches starting to sully the perfection of her linen dress, as the sweat builds and trickles. She's not acclimatised to Karachi either, Kate thinks, as she kneels silently, licking her lips and dreaming of the salty taste of Irene's nipples in her own hot mouth. Soon, she is going to leave Irene begging and pleading for more. But first, Irene has to be allowed to have _her_ way.

"Her name?" Irene says for the third time and Kate croaks out: 

"I don't know."

"Where did you meet her?"

"At the bazaar. She had a veil but I saw her eyes and I followed her home."

"Does she know you're not a man?" It's one of the secrets of Irene's success that she can always disconcert you. Think of a fantasy you didn't even know you had and then drive you half-insane wanting it.

"I–"

"It was dark when you climbed into her room, wasn't it?" Irene's voice is soft now, the intimate therapist's voice that draws your deepest secrets out of you. Kate nods, as she lets Irene's imagination run away with them both. "You can see the shine of her eyes behind her veil, and then she takes that off, but you still can't see the rest of her face clearly. You undress her by touch and your hand is curving round her small breast. She's slender, isn't she, young and tender? Even though you can't see her, you can feel how young she is from her smooth skin. And the belly that your fingertips trace has never held a child. You're kissing her skin and it smells of cinnamon, and as your kisses trace lower, her hands are on you, pulling up your shirt..." Her voice is suddenly cold. "And what does she find there, when she reaches into your trousers? Let's see what's underneath all of this, shall we, Kate, how you're planning to fool her? Strip. Now."

Kate starts to get to her feet and the crop taps lightly on her shoulder.

"Did I say you could stand?" Irene enquires, and Kate ducks her head and kneels back down, her hands reaching for her shirt buttons.

Underneath her kameez, she is wearing nothing but a binder and the jade arm bands. She removes the binder with relief: the reduced pressure on her exposed breasts feels wonderful. But even through the arm rings are chafing her skin, she doesn't want to take them off. Once she's topless, she looks up at Irene and notes the minute signs that she's losing her cool too. Irene's breath is coming a tiny bit faster now, her hand grips the crop a little tighter. It's not just the increasingly stuffy heat of the room that's getting Irene hot and bothered, Kate thinks gleefully, straightening her spine to highlight her slender torso.

"I said strip," Irene's voice is harsh now and Kate reaches round to remove her shoes and socks, before fumbling with the drawstring of her shalwar. She's practised and practised the intricate knot that keeps her baggy trousers up, but once again it jams when she tries to undo the cord, and her sweaty fingers can't seem to find the right loop.

"Hold still," Irene says, putting the crop on the window sill and bending down, and her scarlet nails, so familiar with knots, pull at the string, untying it abruptly. The trousers fall around Kate's knees, revealing the plain cotton briefs beneath. She's not packing; she doesn't need to, in this concealing outfit.

"Was your Sindhi girlfriend disappointed, when she found there was nothing underneath?" Irene asks, and the fingertips of one hand reach into the briefs, stroking the soft flesh, feeling its wetness, as her other hand traces the line of Kate's buttocks.

"Not when I showed her that she didn't need a man to feel good," Kate says, and her mouth reaches up to nuzzle at Irene's exposed neck. This is the moment she craves, that she's worked for, as Irene's controlling mask falls away and she too becomes subject to desire...

A phone beeps abruptly, and Kate curses silently at the distraction. Then she realises that it's her mobile, that she forgot to switch it back off. Irene's hands have left Kate's body and are instead searching eagerly for the phone hidden in the pile of discarded clothes. Kate forces her cramping legs upright so she can stand up straight. Five foot ten of her in nothing but underpants and arm-rings, as she looks _down_ at Irene, who's picking up the iPhone.

"Give it to me," Kate says, and reaches out her hand. Irene's blood-red nails are poised to slide over the touchscreen and when she looks up at Kate, her eyes are wide. Fear...desire?

"It might be Sherlock," Irene whispers, and Kate says:

"He can wait. Give me the phone."

She hopes Irene doesn't hear the tremor in her voice. Her outstretched hand hangs there, waiting for the phone, and her muscles ache and she's so _tired_. Part of her is ready to give in, but a small voice inside her is stubbornly repeating _no_ , as she gazes determinedly into Irene's eyes. She can't come second to a man who doesn't care about Irene. Not the way that Kate does, always has done. Irene can't think about Sherlock _now_.

_If you don't give it to me, I will, I will..._ She doesn't know what she'll do, only that it's something impossible, terrible. That it will be the end of everything. Her vision is blurring, till all that is left is the merciless scarlet line of The Woman's mouth. And then Irene – the true Irene – smiles at her, and places the phone gently in her trembling fingers. Kate switches it off, and puts it beside the riding crop on the window.

"Where were we?" Irene says, her chin tilting up imperiously, and Kate breathes out a relieved sigh as she tugs off her briefs. She kneels back at Irene's feet and reaches up _inside_ the linen dress. In a few hours, they'll know if Sherlock will help, if their intricate plans will need adjusting to accommodate an extra player. And tomorrow, whether Sherlock comes or not, the plan will start into motion. In a few days, perhaps, Irene Adler, The Woman, will be gone for good. 

But for now, both Kate and Irene have all they need in this one hot, anonymous hotel room. For now, there is nothing more that either of them could desire.


	2. We're All Going on a Summer Holiday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah never falls for the right sort of man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the wonderful [second_skin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/second_skin)
> 
> NOTE: This was written for Prompt 78 of the [Sherlockmas Summer Vacay](http://sherlockmas.livejournal.com/) festival: "John/Sarah; When Sherlock's away, John tracks her down hoping for another chance."

_Friday 24th June 2011_

Tomorrow is Helen Fitzpatrick's wedding day and Sarah knows it's going to be a disaster. Thank goodness she wasn't invited. Though a small part of her still feels that she should have gone along and piped up when the vicar asked if anyone knew any reason why Helen and Roger should not marry.

_Because Roger's an arsehole and Helen's only marrying him in the forlorn hope that'll make him stop cheating on her. Because everyone at Elmswood Surgery knows that the marriage won't work and that Helen will be weeping over the patient files again within a year. And that's both horrible and inconvenient for the rest of the receptionists._

It wouldn't make any difference, of course, even if she did have the nerve to say it. There are women who are just irresistibly attracted to hopeless men. Like Sarah herself.

***

There's always a point in any discussion of marriage in which Sarah's friends and colleagues tell her she's too cynical. Just because her own marriage didn't work out, just because she sees too many harassed mothers needing antidepressants because their relationship has broken up, and others with the dubious, badly-explained injuries that make you wish it _would_ break up, that isn't the whole story. There are good men out there, her friends remind her. They know better by now than to tell her that her true love is out there waiting for her, but she can still sometimes catch them thinking it, wanting to pair her off safely, because surely she must still want someone...

And, yes, she does. Just not the right sort of man.

***

It's supposed to be cool and drizzly in the morning, but fine tomorrow afternoon. Helen will get married in the dry; Sarah will rush through the week's cleaning, go for a run in Kelsey Park and then have the afternoon free for reading _Wolf Hall_. Her book club is meeting next week, and for once she is going to go along having read the whole novel, not just bluffing her way through the last four chapters, like some schoolgirl who hasn't done her homework properly.

But it's the start of summer and once again her thoughts are drifting to impossible men. In the winter, it's fine being on her own; she can snuggle up in her own little flat and feel secure and warm and happy. But there's something about summer – about June – that drags her back to her youth, before the reality of life bore down on her. She always gets an end of term feeling about now. The urge to rebel, to do something ridiculous.

***  
 _Summer 1988_

Glen Thomas is a rebel; that's his main attraction to the fifteen year-old Sarah. She waits eagerly for the summer holidays and then spends what seems like the whole of them snogging him and letting him feel her breasts. Nothing else matters, even when the start of the school year means they're tragically reduced to a few hours of groping a day. Homework, chores, helping out with the Brownies: they all go by the wayside, when she can hang out with Glen and his mates and pretend to be wild.

Glen's the reason Sarah nearly messes up her GCSEs. But all too soon he's leaving school, while she is staying on for A levels; her teachers give her stern warnings about how hard she'll have to work if she's serious about becoming a doctor. And when Glen gets a moped, even she can tell that it's going to end badly. Sure enough, three weeks after they split up he's in St Richard's hospital, where she's volunteering, with a broken leg.

***

You don't get to be a doctor by wasting your time pining after impossible boys. Or by lying around in the sun, enjoying yourself. Instead Sarah has summer after summer of studying and training placements. When she finally becomes a GP, June and July are for treating sunburn and hay fever and food poisoning and whatever more exotic ailments people manage to bring back from package holidays. And then rejigging the practice rotas so the doctors with families can fly off somewhere themselves, while she and the other childless partners cover for them.

Every year Sarah takes a long holiday out of peak season to make up for sacrificing her summer for other people's children. It's cheaper and less crowded. And also far more enjoyable, to have that kind of freedom. She doesn't want a family; at least not enough to look for someone to have one with. (Single parenthood requires more devotion than Sarah's prepared to give; she knows her own limits). She's met men who would make wonderful fathers; she's dated them sometimes. But always, in the end, she's realised that they're not for her.

Ever since Glen, all the men she has fallen for – fallen for hard – have been wild ones, and she's learned from experience that marrying that sort of man is a terrible move. She did marry Mark Brasher and look what happened. Three years of promises and arguments and lies, of Sarah gradually turning into her mother and Mark turning into a feckless layabout who would break any mother's heart. Little left of the exuberant jazz musician who'd charmed Sarah; just a man channelling his improvising skills into freeform destructiveness. As if being married to a GP was such an affront to his image that he had to smash up everything.

Sarah had left when Mark had missed one audition too many with a hangover; stepped over the invisible line between impossible and unbearable. She's learned her lesson. She might crave wild men, but not a lifetime of clearing up after them.

She's stuck to more or less casual relationships since Mark, but it's getting harder to find someone she likes. The men she meets socially now come with too much baggage: marriages, stepchildren, psychotherapists. But she's also growing wary of one-night stands; too many Monday mornings contemplating the patients whose search for adventure has gone badly wrong. And even though there are eight million people in London, she seems doomed always to meet someone she knows on the rare occasions she does decide to go out on the pull. There's nothing worse than chatting up someone and then realising that they're your new trainee's cousin.

***

The late afternoon sunshine is trying to make the grimy street outside the surgery look vaguely attractive and almost managing it. What she needs, Sarah thinks, is a convenient seaside conference. Nothing like a drug company freebie, where your eyes meet someone else's during a tedious presentation on managing asthma...And the thing about doctors is that they mainly have more of a clue about female anatomy than your average male. But there's nothing coming up soon that she can possibly justify spending the training budget on.

She sighs and tries to concentrate on the paperwork that needs to be completed tonight. No, that needed to be completed last week by Dr Thompson before he buggered off on holiday to Germany. She's going to have a talk with James when he gets back. Sarah may have a weakness for unreliable men in the bedroom, but not in the surgery. Well, not often.

Her phone rings; she's not supposed to be on duty, but maybe the queue for the evening surgery is building up to impossible proportions.

"Sarah," Janice says, "I've got a Dr Watson on the line for you. John Watson. I think he worked here as a locum for a while. He wants to talk to you."

"Put him through," Sarah says, trying to think how to tell John that there really, really isn't any work for him. It's not that he's a bad doctor – in some ways he's very good – but after Sherlock causing the anthrax scare, there is no way that she can ever again allow John within a mile of the surgery.

"Hi, John," she says cheerfully. "How are you doing?"

"Fine, thanks. I've been meaning to phone you, but I wasn't quite sure what to say."

 _Shit_. He really is angling for a job, isn't he?

"Fire ahead," she says, because she wants to get this over with.

"Look, I know it's a terrible cheek, especially when I haven't really kept in touch, and I don't know how you're placed, but I was wondering..." He comes to a halt.

 _I'm sorry, but I don't feel that I could agree to you working here again..._ No, better to say that the partners wouldn't like it, spread the blame onto that anonymous group. 

"I'm sorry," John goes on. "This is a bit awkward, isn't it? Only I thought, maybe if you were willing to give me another chance..." His voice dies away again.

 _I can't just sit here and listen to this_ , Sarah thinks. She's _fond_ of John, even now. She doesn't like hearing him make a fool of himself.

"I'm so sorry, but we're fully staffed at the moment," she says, and there's an odd kind of grunt at the other end of the phone and then John's voice rings out indignantly. "I don't need a job, Sarah! I was trying to ask you out."

She can't help it. She starts giggling and a moment later she can hear John start to giggle too. He is just so hopeless sometimes. The sweetest, most impossible man she's ever fallen for.

"I'm busy tonight," she manages to get out after a while, and she can hear him abruptly stop giggling, imagine the wearily sober look come back onto his face.

"I should have expected that," he replies quietly and then adds. "But if you're free some other time?" 

His persistence has always been ridiculous and yet somehow admirable; her mind flashes back to him lying exhausted in a disused railway tunnel, insisting that their second date would be better.

But it's not just that; she wants to see him, see how he's getting on. She still feels uncomfortable about how she dumped him last year. It'd be good to be friends again, at least.

"I...I was going running tomorrow. Would you like to come along?" she blurts out, and she knows even as she says it that it's a ludicrous suggestion. You don't invite an ex to come for a run with you. It's at once too intimate and too obviously a brush-off.

Except she's talking to John Hamish Watson, whose already hazy grasp of social decencies has been further eroded by his time with Sherlock. So he replies enthusiastically, and the next thing she knows, they're agreeing to meet by the Kelsey Park tennis courts tomorrow at half-past nine. As she puts the phone down, she realises that once again she's ended up doing something completely stupid on account of John.

There's something about John that always gets her slightly off-balance, lures her into his skewed world, she thinks, as she sits in the surgery, grinning ridiculously, despite the remaining paperwork. She should never have got involved with him in the first place, of course. It was terribly unprofessional of her.

***  
 _March 2010_

Job interviews aren't supposed to end up with the interviewer flirting with the interviewee. Dr Watson's CV makes him by far the best of the prospective locums on paper, but Sarah suspects there's some other problem with him, if he's applying for such lowly jobs. An army doctor will have a terrible bedside manner, doubtless used to bellowing orders at soldiers; he's probably also going to be about six foot three, with bulging muscles and that'll upset Dr Jones, who enjoys being the unofficial surgery pin-up.

So it's disarming to find that John's small and friendly and rather cute, and it's easy – as well as totally justified – to offer him the job. What is absolutely unjustified, she knows, is not sacking him when he falls asleep in the surgery on his first day there. She can persuade herself – she could if necessary persuade the other partners – that he's _still_ a better bet than the alternatives the locum agency is offering, at least one of whom she suspects of having acquired his qualifications wholesale online. But agreeing to go out on a date with John afterwards is simply rewarding poor behaviour.

Very unprofessional, she knows. But she's tired of every recent decision she's made – at work, in her personal life – being sensible. She wants to go out with John and she doesn't want to sack him, so damn the consequences.

***

She doesn't expect the consequences to be her nearly getting killed. But she's in too far by now, and she doesn't care. Stupidly in love with another impossible man who flips between being a sensible doctor and a thrill-seeking ex-soldier. A man who exists in some kind of improbable world of nine million pound hairpins and the Secret Service popping round to his flat to ask for help. John's job – his other job – at once fascinates and terrifies Sarah. He follows after Sherlock and she follows after John and it can't last. She knows that already, but she can't bear to break the spell just yet.

*** 

_Saturday 25th June 2011_

When Sarah reaches the tennis courts on Saturday morning, there's no sign of John and she's torn between disappointment and relief. And then a familiar figure in a grey T-shirt, faded shorts and army boots emerges from the toilets and greets her. John doesn't look like a runner, she thinks, and belatedly remembers that the reason he's an ex-army doctor is because he got _shot_.

"Is your leg going to be up to this?" she demands, and then realises she could have phrased that a lot more tactfully. 

But John just smiles and says, "The limp was psychosomatic, like I said at the time." And then the grin gets a little strained, as he adds, "And my nightmares have stopped as well."

"Good," Sarah replies brightly, but as she puts his kit bag in her car and then hastily starts doing some warm-up stretches, she remembers why, even though John's such a straightforward man generally, it's sometimes unexpectedly _complicated_ being with him. 

***  
 _March 2010_

John tells Sarah about the nightmares when she suggests they sleep together for the first time – which is less than a week since they met. And several days after they first have sex, because frankly they can't keep their hands off one another during the second date. It's embarrassing how like a giddy teenager John can make her feel. 

He's such an odd mix of the ridiculous and the practical, she thinks. Take tonight. John turns up mid-evening, asking slightly pathetically if he can stay the night, because Sherlock's being impossible. And then wants to know if it's OK to cook himself something, because he's starving and at least her fridge will be free of severed heads. The next thing she knows, he's cooking an enormous fry-up for them both, while they swap tall tales about medical school pranks with body parts. (She wins with the story of the hand glued to a handrail in a Circle Line carriage).

Obviously, they then end up having energetic sex purely to burn off all the excess calories from the fry-up. It's only after they've cleaned themselves up that John turns to her and says, slightly shamefacedly, "It might be better if I slept on the sofa."

She looks at him in surprise.

"I have nightmares sometimes," he says, "I don't want to disturb you." She's been a GP long enough to recognise the sudden wary note in his voice. The one that says: _I would rather have my fingernails pulled out than tell you the details of my mental health problems._

"That's fine," she replies hastily. "I've got a lilo you can sleep on."

"The sofa's fine," John mutters and she can see him closing in on himself, the pain that lurks behind his normal cheery facade. 

So she smiles reassuringly and says, "Well, at least you won't discover if I snore or not."

In the morning, she makes a stupid joke about letting him sleep on the end of her bed next time, trying to make it sound as if it's no big deal. And a rumpled John mutters some question about the time after that, as if he worries that there's something broken about him that Sarah won't be able to accept. She smiles and tells him casually to make his own breakfast and it all seems fine. Till he has to rush off to rescue Sherlock because someone's blown up a bit of Baker Street.

She understands why he feels the need to check on his friend. But it does remind her again what a dangerous life that pair lead. 

***  
 _June 2011_

As Sarah stretches her hamstrings, she tries to work out the minimum distance she can suggest jogging without being too blatant, just in case John's being over-optimistic about his leg. It's about a mile round the circuit; three laps instead of her normal four? Or even two laps?

"How long do you have?" she asks – _God, that sounds like I think he's dying_ – "I mean, do you have appointments you need to keep, armed gangs you have to go and thwart?"

John grins. "Nothing. I'm all yours today." And then he starts to blush, and hastily bends down to check his bootlaces. 

"When you're ready, we can go," Sarah says, and jogs slowly off before either of them says anything even more stupid.

***

Once they get going, John runs better than she expected. No style, but he's determinedly pacing himself, not trying to outrun her but very steadily matching her speed. One lap, two laps and he's still got the air of a man who can keep this up all morning.

"Shall we try for five?" she asks, and he nods.

By the fifth time round, they're both definitely feeling it and when Sarah goes past the Rose Garden for the last time, she would be walking if she was on her own. She keeps on running though, and John stumbles wearily after her, his normal grin nowhere to be seen. But when they finally make it back to the tennis courts and he collapses unashamedly against the fence, gasping for breath, the grin's soon back.

"God, I've got no stamina any more," John says, smiling at Sarah as she props herself up next to him. "Good job I'm with someone who can do CPR, isn't it? Do you get a lot of middle-aged men keeling over at this point?"

"You did very well," Sarah replies, trying to sound like _she's_ not exhausted.

"I spend half my life running like crazy after Sherlock...but that's mostly short sprints. You normally either catch someone or lose them within a mile or two."

"Do you want to come and have a drink in the cafe?" she asks. "Give us an excuse to sit down for a bit."

"Sounds good to me."

***

"So how are things at the surgery?" John asks, once they've got their coffees, and Sarah ends up telling him. In detail. She's bottled things up for far too long, and he's a sympathetic listener _and_ knows most of the people concerned.

"I'm sorry," she says, when she realises that her coffee's got cold, because she's been talking for nearly half an hour.

"It's fine," he says. "It's hard sometimes, if you haven't got anyone to talk to."

From John, that's a surprisingly tactful way of asking if there's a new boyfriend around, so she smiles and says, "No-one who wants to hear that much about the NHS; my sister always asks after about five minutes why I can't get a nice job in Harley Street."

John nods, and there's a hopefulness about his smile now that she's familiar with, that's probably echoed in her own face. The spark is still there between them, isn't it? No, more than just a spark, she realises. The warm glow she's starting to feel inside isn't just from the exercise. But she ought to check that John really is free today. It'd be just her luck to find that Sherlock's decided it's a good day to track down the hitherto unknown criminal mastermind controlling the mean streets of Beckenham.

"So have you got a case on at the moment?" she asks, and John licks his lips, looks down at his mug, and says quietly, "Sherlock flew off to Washington yesterday. Some problem at the British embassy."

"How long will he be in the States?" Sarah asks and John's voice is bleak as he replies:

"I don't know."

She's wrecked the mood now, hasn't she? Clearly something has gone badly wrong between John and Sherlock; she waits in silence for him to tell her what's happened. But when John opens his mouth again, all he says is:

"Sherlock...does go abroad for cases sometimes."

 _Without you_ , she thinks, and she wishes that men – that John – could just talk about what's bothering them. But she knows he won't, that whatever's making him miserable is something he can't yet put into words. And she can't bear it – it hurts even now – to see him look like that, his face falling back into the weary lines she's familiar with. But there's one thing she can do to cheer him up, she decides. Her hand moves under the table to rest on his thigh and the pain abruptly vanishes from his eyes. Because John Watson is not gay.

***  
 _April 2010_

"You really do pick them, don't you, Sarah?" Marie tells her on the phone, with the smugness that only a married younger sister can manage. "So the latest boyfriend's short and he has PTSD and now it turns out he's gay as well?"

"John's not gay," Sarah says and hears Marie's snort of derision.

"He spends all his time on his blog raving about his flatmate. Of course he's gay. Can't you just find someone sane for once?"

Sarah murmurs something non-committal at that point, because there are things she can't tell her sister without shocking her. Like: _I know John's not gay, because I know exactly what expression he has on his face when he's desperate to have sex with someone. And it's me, not Sherlock, he looks at like that._

***

_June 2011_

Five minutes of surreptitious groping later and Sarah decides they'd better leave the cafe while John can still walk straight. She also doesn't want to get either of them banned from the park for upsetting children. It's starting to rain as they go outside, which immediately cuts out any half-baked ideas of outdoor sex. Instead, they race to Sarah's car as fast as their weary legs can take them.

"My flat is nearer," she says, and John sits down hastily in the passenger seat, dumping his kitbag in his lap in a way that simply emphasises the fact that his shorts are bulging rather obscenely. It's probably just as well that she's driving and that there isn't too far to go because she can feel the tension building within her as well. The urge to grab what she wants – who she wants – and hold on tight. 

When they get home, she slams the front door behind them and then starts snogging John right against it. An enthusiastic, tongue-battling snog and then their already sweaty bodies are grinding against each other, John's erection pushing against Sarah's groin as she stretches up on her toes. She feels like the horniest of teenagers again, but she's also picked up a few tricks since she left school. And she's reasonably confident that as long as they stay near the door, no-one will be able to see them from outside. Well, at least unless they're staring in very intently. Won't they get a surprise if they do?

She drops to her knees and unbuttons John's shorts. His eyes widen in delighted surprise and then his hands come down, carefully pulling down his shorts and Y-fronts. Sarah was twenty before she realised that oral sex didn't just mean talking about it, but she's learned a lot since then. And as she takes John's sturdy cock in her mouth, there's something satisfying about the breathy sounds of pleasure that he's already making, as he braces himself against the door. She is all John wants, all he needs right now.

Sarah can feel John's legs tremble when he comes, gasping and calling out her name, and she wonders for a moment whether he's going to collapse on top of her. But he steadies himself and then bends down to kiss her very gently on the forehead. His hair is standing on end at the back where he's leant across the door, and he's flushed and has a dopy grin on his face. Then his arms go round her body and he's helping her back to her feet. He's not much taller than her, but he's quite a bit stronger. And there's something in his eyes now that reminds her that he's not sixteen any more either. That he's learnt a thing or two from twenty years of studying anatomy and travelling three continents. She smiles up at him, because there are advantages in being old enough to know what _she_ wants. 

"Bedroom?" John asks, his grey eyes gazing enthusiastically into hers. "Living room? Kitchen? Remember, I'm all yours today." 

He doesn't blush as he says it this time. One of his hands is resting lightly on the waistband of her jogging pants now, waiting for her permission before heading down inside it. There are reasons she's always enjoyed having sex with him; he has the twin advantages of a lot of stamina and being willing to take instructions.

"Bedroom," she says, and he grins and follows after her.

***

She screams unashamedly when she comes, and to _hell_ with what the neighbours think. Then she rests her head on John's shoulder and curls her arm round his chest and just lets time pass. The adult world can wait for a bit till she rejoins it. 

"So what do you want to do now?" John murmurs eventually, and as she lies there with her eyes almost closed, the words bubble out of her subconscious:

"Run away somewhere."

"I've probably got enough for the bus fare, and they won't miss us at first," John replies, and when she opens her eyes, he's grinning down at her in a completely irresponsible way.

"Oh God, were you like that as a kid as well?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "No, it was Harry who was the runaway, always desperate to get out of Wiltshire. She hitchhiked to London once when she was fourteen. Terrified my parents."

"The most I ever managed was sneaking off to a late night disco in Kings Lynn," Sarah says.

"I didn't even manage that. I was a good little boy, didn't get into trouble." He leans back onto the pillow and adds quietly. "And then I signed up for the Army at eighteen and broke my mother's heart."

"If it was what you wanted to do–"

"What I _had_ to do. But it probably helped that it got me far away from Calne." He stares at the ceiling for a moment and then asks, "So where would you like to run away to today? London's a bit over-rated."

"I want the seaside," she says, sitting up with sudden decision. Why not? Why does she have to stay at home when the sun's coming out and it's turning into a lovely day?

"Southend?"

"Brighton's easier to get to," she says. "An hour on the train I think. It's years since I've been there."

"Nor sure I ever have," John says, and he's up on his feet now, reaching for some tissues. "Shall we go and explore it then?"

***

"Sure it's Brighton you want?" John says, when they're queuing for tickets at Beckenham Junction station. "It's Sherlock's credit card, so we can go as far as we want."

"Anywhere?"

"Any beach in the world you want," he says, and his smile suddenly loses its intensity.

"Brighton's fine. I haven't brought my passport," she says quickly, and John nods and looks away and she knows he's remembering New Zealand.

   
***

_April 2010_

"New Zealand?" Sarah demands, and John stands in the surgery office and smiles his most disarming smile and says:

"I have an old army friend called Colin Overton who's been telling me for years that I should come down to South Island and stay with him. And now I've got two airline tickets. Business class. Will you come?"

She can't ask _How can you afford it_ , when he's smiling for the first time in a week. But John's obviously been taking detective lessons from Sherlock, and he adds:

"The tickets are Sherlock's. The Auckland Rugby Football Union wanted him to go out there and finding a missing wing three-quarter of theirs. But he solved the problem via the internet instead."

"If I go with you, will Sherlock turn up and interfere at some point?" she asks, and realises that she's already halfway to accepting John's completely ridiculous idea.

"He won't come to New Zealand," John replies, folding his arms. "He doesn't like rugby and I don't think he cares much for sheep either." And then his smile fades and he adds quietly. "I think I, we, could both do with some time off after...after everything."

A week ago, someone strapped John into a bomb-jacket and almost blew him up; less than a month ago he and Sarah were both kidnapped. There's a wary look almost permanently in John's eyes, and Sarah doesn't think he's sleeping properly. But she doesn't _know_ , because he hasn't been round to her flat since the day of the first explosion. She has to do something if she's going to make things work between them again. But just going away with him for two weeks holiday is completely unrealistic. The surgery couldn't possibly manage.

Except that John promptly points out that she _has_ to take some holiday within the next month if she's going to stick to her own surgery rules on annual leave. And he has a friend of a friend who can cover for him, and Natalie will be back from maternity leave in a couple of days time...

She's forgotten that logistics comes naturally to the military. Her objections are countered with practical suggestions and she can't help noticing that John looks more _alive_ than he's done since the bombings, back to the enthusiastic charmer that she fell so hard for. She's carried away by the project; she doesn't even back out when John reveals a few days later that Colin, whom they'll be staying with, is planning an adventure holiday for them. It's not the sort of trip she's ever imagined herself going on, but that's half the point. She's got John alongside her, and why not seize the chance to do something different? Be someone different?

***

It's only when they're in Motueka, about to collapse into bed after a day and a half of travelling, that Sarah remembers that there are some problems it's not so easy to run away from. John is just about to suggest that he sleeps somewhere else, she can tell, which is ridiculous. Whatever his problem with nightmares, she has to get used to it and now seems an opportunity. As she points out, he may not have them tonight, anyhow.

He does, but it's not as bad as she expects. He thrashes around and wakes her up, and she's slightly dazed from the jetlag, which doesn't help. By the time she's gone to the bathroom and come back, she's half expecting him to be trying to pretend that nothing is happening. But instead he's got the lights on and he's sitting on the bed, gazing into space as if still seeing things that aren't there.

"What was it?" she asks. 

"It's not PTSD," John mutters wearily, "it's not the same dream every time. It's not always about the war, even when I was fighting it. But someone is in danger and I can't get to them in time. Whatever I do, it's just too late."

She rest a cool hand on his hot shoulder and tries to get her own mind into gear, waiting for him to say more. He stares into space a bit more and then finally looks round at her.

"It was the crossbow tonight," he says, and then he puts his head in his hands and it suddenly makes sense that he's been trying to avoid her finding out about that. That he's scared that his own fears will trigger traumatic memories for her. Of nearly being killed because a pack of Chinese gangsters mistook John for Sherlock.

" _I_ don't have nightmares about that," she whispers and her arms go round him, and she hopes he can sense that she's telling the truth. Maybe she should have been traumatised by General Shan, but she isn't; her luck has somehow held. 

Her brain fishes out a statistic: _The prevalence of PTSD among direct victims of disasters is 30–40 percent_. She's read up on the subject ever since she first met John, but it seems that's not the problem after all. Only the ordinary fears of people who lead a dangerous life. Or who love someone who does. She holds John tight and says: "I'm not dead. You saved me; you'll always save me." 

Her voice sounds small and unconvincing to her own ears, but she hugs him tighter, and maybe something registers. John sighs, and says: "We should try and get back to sleep."

They lie in the dark and John curls up close to her, a hot solid arm round her waist. She wonders who's supposed to be comforting whom, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they get through this night together. And the other nights to come.

***

John's restless the next night, but doesn't wake up, and the night after that they both sleep like the dead. Colin's taken them whitewater rafting and Sarah's so whacked she can barely get upstairs. Everything aches. And it was probably the most thrilling day of her life.

Scary as well, but in the right way. Colin and John are reassuringly calm under pressure, with the carefulness of men who've seen a lot of danger. They check their equipment carefully, they listen to their instructors.

"It's all about managing risk," Colin says one breakfast time, when they're discussing the hike he's planned for all three of them. "You can get killed crossing the road if you're careless. With something bigger, you just have to work out what might go wrong and then plan how to deal with it."

Colin is tall and thin and balding and has a limp that's definitely not just psychosomatic, because his right foot got blown off in Helmand province. He blows on his coffee and then tells Sarah: "So if I do manage to fall over and bust something today, the plan is that you stay and give me medical care while John goes for help."

"What Colin is trying to say," John replies calmly, "is that if he starts malingering, he thinks you'll be more sympathetic than I would be."

"What I mean," Colin retorts, tilting his chair back at a perilous angle, "is that Sarah must have a better bedside manner than John here. I distinctly remember lying around in a heap and Captain Watson telling me that the good news was that I still had 75% of my limbs."

Sarah grins at that, because she's getting used to the fact that army humour is even blacker than that of doctors. She'll never be part of the military world that Colin and John once belonged to. But it's made them what they are and she's starting to understand it a little, share in the camaraderie they're trying to recreate. The three of them go rock-climbing the next day, and she's hopeless at it: you need a string-bean physique to be a good climber, not short and curvy like her. But they haul her up the rock face eventually, and when Colin tells her the next thing he has planned is horse-riding, it's John who looks worried this time.

*** 

A week into the holiday and John's nightmares have stopped; if their nights are disturbed, it's only when they have sufficient energy left for sex after the day's exertions. John's a good boyfriend in that way, Sarah thinks, knows what she likes and how to turn her on with a look, a touch. And he's easy to get on with as well. She finds herself wondering if this might be more than just a short-term fling, if John's the impossible man it might be possible to live with. Yes, the detective work is disruptive and sometimes dangerous, but she can't imagine John being content with the mundane life of a GP. He's only really happy when there's a vague chance he might end up breaking his neck. It's a risk, of course, staying with him, but it's a risk she might be able to manage.

And then they come back home after an afternoon's kayaking and John switches on his phone to find five messages on his voicemail. All from Sherlock. The early ones announce that Sherlock has a case and John needs to come home. The last ones demand that John returns immediately: a man's life depends on it.

"He always says that," John says, as he plays the final message to Colin and Sarah. "I asked him once _whose_ life, and he said he calculated that Donovan would snap one of these days and shoot him if I wasn't around as a witness."

"So are you going back?" Colin says, and Sarah surreptitiously sags in gratitude that _she_ doesn't have to be the one asking that question.

"Of course not," John says. "Sherlock managed for five years without me; he'll be fine for a few more days."

***

John wakes up shouting that night, and when Sarah puts her arms around him, he can't say anything coherent for a few moments. He lies there, gasping, and then finally whispers: "I dreamt I shot the cabbie and the bomb-jacket blew up."

"What?" she says, because maybe it's not surprising that messages from Sherlock remind him of bomb-jackets, but what does that have to do with taxis?

John lies there in the darkness and tells her about the Pink Lady. She vaguely remembers the case from his blog, but now he gives her the full story. The bits that he's never written about, that she suspects he's never told anyone before.

"I shot the cabbie to stop Sherlock taking the poison," John says. "I didn't worry about shooting him; I didn't have problems sleeping that night." He pauses and then adds: 

"But tonight in my dream when I went to shoot him, I saw the red dot of the laser sight and then the bomb-jacket went up. Sherlock was next to him; he wouldn't have stood a chance."

It's always other people dying that John has nightmares about, but there's something more here. He's taking much longer to calm down than he normally does; Sarah can feel him force himself not to shudder and she desperately tries to think of the right thing to say. Then she has an idea. She gets up and switches on the lights and sits next to where he's lying on the bed, not touching him this time.

"Is there someone you can phone?" she asks.

"It's the middle of the night."

"So it's early afternoon in London. If you phone up someone and check that Sherlock's OK, will you be able to sleep then?"

"I–"

"It's OK," she says. "I've...I've had dreams occasionally that I worried might be premonitions. Can you speak to Inspector Lestrange or whatever his name is and make sure that someone keeps an eye on Sherlock?"

She can see the rational part of John's brain starting to kick in, once he's got something practical to do. It takes him several phone calls, and she falls asleep before he finishes them all, but the rest of the night is quiet. 

***

John looks tired in the morning, but not too bad otherwise. But things still aren't back to normal, she realises over the next few days. The nightmares have returned, but he's not telling her anything about them now, as if he's worried that he's revealed too much already. And in the daytime she sees him reach for his phone surreptitiously and then put it away if he notices her watching.

 _How do I manage this risk_ , she wonders, and decides that she has to say something.

"Are you worrying about other people back home, as well?" she asks, as she climbs out of the shower that evening. She pulls on her bathrobe, trying to look harmless, comforting. She's not some kind of jealous girlfriend who can't cope with John's concern for others. "It must be hard being half the world away from everyone again."

John is cleaning his teeth, staring into the mirror, and she watches his reflection, wondering if it will mysteriously reveal something that his closed-off real life face won't do.

"Just Sherlock," he says, rather indistinctly, and rinses out his mouth. "He's got no sense of self-preservation. I worry about him sometimes."

 _You worry about him all the time_ , she thinks, but maybe that's not surprising. How many times has Sherlock risked his neck since John's known him? Risked his neck needlessly, like with those stupid pills? And Sherlock doesn't even know how to fight properly, she remembers. _She_ had to help out when the Chinese gangsters attacked him at the circus. Later that evening, with the crossbow about to fire, he'd fumbled to untie her and been grabbed from behind. She can feel her palms starting to sweat as that memory comes back to her. If John hadn't knocked the machine over...

And suddenly she _knows_ what John's nightmare is, and she blurts out:

"It's the crossbow again, isn't it, in your dream? You try and save me and you shoot him by mistake?"

John's right leg buckles and his hands grip the sink to stop himself crashing to the ground. And then he stands perfectly still, and she can see the tension in his muscles as he wills himself into standing upright again. He is a soldier and he does not give up. He nods and says huskily:

"It's a dream, it doesn't make sense."

 _But it does_ , she thinks. It's Sherlock's death that John dreams about, and sooner or later it's not just going to be a dream. _Work out what might go wrong and then plan for it_. Sooner or later Sherlock is going to miscalculate and John won't be there to save him. She can share John with Sherlock while Sherlock's alive, but what happens if – when – he's dead? How can she be enough for John then?

"It's just a dream," John insists. "I get stressed and my mind plays silly tricks."

Sarah nods, and puts a hand round his waist, and smiles and lets him kiss her with minty-fresh breath. A few more days of holiday still, she should enjoy that at least. And maybe when they get back to London it'll all seem manageable again.

***   
_June 2011_

"So how's the blog going?" Sarah asks, as they sit on the train. "I haven't been keeping up with it recently." Not since that awkward post after the New Zealand trip where John had announced to the world their break-up. He'd been pretty tactful about it, surprisingly, but it was still hardly something she wanted to re-read.

"I've got followers now, which is weird," John replies. "I mean not just Mike and Harry and Mrs Hudson, but people who read it for fun. Only the hit-counter doesn't work, so I don't know how many."

"Are you still blogging about your cases?" she asks. "I was always surprised the police let you do so. I thought it might be contempt of court or something."

"Well I have had some sticky moments," John says, smiling at her, and then he starts to tell her about the cases, the words tumbling out of him. He's got better at telling stories, she thinks, as she listens to him, and they're wonderful stories, of course. When he describes Sherlock "borrowing" a bus, even she has to laugh at the thought. And just for a moment, she envies John. John, who gets to chase around after a mad genius, while she sits in a surgery and dispenses antibiotics and good advice.

But then John's telling her about Gavin Roylott poisoning his stepdaughters, and she knows she couldn't cope with that. She's seen a lot of people die over the years, but deliberate murder still appals her. She couldn't lose herself in the puzzle side of a case in the way that Sherlock and John seem able to.

As if he's sensed her concerns, John switches back to telling her about the quirky cases as they rattle through Sussex. The smashed statues of Margaret Thatcher; dressing up as ninjas; the case with The Hat. She remembers again that it's fun going on holiday with him. When they get to Brighton, it's easy to find things to do together. They get fish and chips for lunch; they go for a paddle on the beach. Then they head off to the Royal Pavilion.

"What is it about George IV and dragons?" John demands, when they're walking back to the beach afterwards, giggling. "How can anyone be so obsessed with them? And the Banqueting Hall's even tackier than Buckingham Palace." 

"You've been there?" Sarah asks with surprise.

"Sherlock had a case involving a member of the royal family," John replies. "And Irene Adler."

Sarah can't resist it. "What was she like?" If she can't be part of John and Sherlock's gaudy world – and she can't – she can at least get some vicarious excitement. Hear what the notorious Woman is like in real life.

"She's a horrible person," John says, the laughter dying out of his face.

"She looks beautiful in the photos."

"She's not a...nice woman," John says, and then he licks his lips and adds slowly. "She was working with James Moriarty, who bombed Baker Street. And she drugged and beat Sherlock."

Sarah doesn't know what to say. There's something raw in John's voice now, and she gets the feeling that there's a lot more he could say about Irene Adler and Sherlock. But as she waits, he shakes his head and his arm reaches out to go around her waist. She's put on a denim miniskirt for this afternoon's trip, and she's already noticed John admiring her arse. 

"I guess Irene Adler's just not my type," John says, smiling down at her, and beneath the cheesy statement, she knows there's something genuine. That's it not just sexual attraction between them, but that he still cares for her, even now. If only there'd been some way they could have made it work.

***

_April 2010_

"Please don't worry," DI Lestrade keeps on repeating, as he sits in her surgery office. "John's going to be fine."

"So why are you here?" she demands. "I thought when you turned up...I thought he was dead."

"I'm sorry," he says, and there's something warm and calming about those brown eyes on her. "I reckoned it would be quickest if I came and collected you, but I wasn't thinking straight. The hospital say they can discharge John if he's got someone reliable to keep an eye on him overnight. But I have to get home before the wife kills me, and I can't get hold of Mrs Hudson. There's Sherlock..." His voice tails away.

"But Sherlock's not reliable," she says. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have over-reacted. If you can wait ten minutes, while I finish off here?" 

Lestrade nods and waits patiently as she logs off the PC, and then phones the restaurant to cancel her reservation. It was supposed to be her first evening together with John after they got back from New Zealand. And she's going to spend it checking he's not got complications from concussion. Life is not fair sometimes, she thinks.

***

The traffic's bad at this time of the day and it takes forever to get to the Royal London Hospital. She can feel herself getting wound up as the journey stretches out, even though she knows that John is in no danger. He's sitting up in bed when she gets there, but he looks small and grey and they've had to shave some of the hair off the right of his head to put some stitches in.

"I bashed myself getting out of the river, that was all," John says, slightly raggedly. "Stupid thing to do. We had to jump off the barge because we'd been spotted, and even though we were near the bank, the current's strong. I got caught in an eddy when I was trying to get a grip onto one of the ladders."

"You jumped into the Thames?" she says bleakly. In the surgery waiting room, they have the Port of London Authority safety poster up on the wall. _Do not swim in the river. The water is cold and deep. The current can travel at five miles an hour. Even fast swimmers can't beat the current_. How many times has John walked past that notice? How could he not know?

"The men on the barge had guns," John says. His voice is quiet, almost calm. "And they'd have happily killed Sherlock. I didn't see any other option but to swim for it."

 _Neither of you getting on the barge in the first place?_ She looks at John, and yes, of course he knows. He's not stupid. And she waits for him to say: _It won't happen again. Next time won't be like this_. 

Except he can't tell her that anymore, can he? Or he can, but it wouldn't be true and they both know it. It's the end of a long day, and she wishes they were safely back in New Zealand, because she can't live like this, she suddenly realises. A relationship punctuated by bombs and hospital beds and visits from policemen, till the risks can't be managed any longer, and John or Sherlock or both are dead.

"I can't do this," she bursts out, and there are tears welling in her eyes. "I'm sorry, John, I just can't keep on having this happen." She walks off and she hears John's protests behind her, but he doesn't try and follow her. 

She goes to the nurse's station and tells them that she won't be able to take John home, but she'll find someone who can. She digs out Mike Stamford's number eventually and he agrees to come and collect John. When Mike turns up, he smiles a rueful smile at her, and she knows it's not a surprise to him that she's dumping John. He's known John forever, must realise that he's not a man who's good at long-term relationships. Well, except with Sherlock, of course. John and Sherlock are together for life. She just hopes that's a longer time than she fears.

***

_June 2011_

Sarah shifts back into the warmth of John's arm as they sit on a bench and watch the tide coming in on the beach below. Easy just to close her eyes, imagine her cares being scoured away. _Under the boardwalk, down by the sea. On a blanket with my boyfriend, is where I'll be_. They're a bit too old for that, but surely they can find somewhere...

"We don't have to go back tonight," she says. "We must be able to find a hotel room in Brighton."

John doesn't reply, and when she looks across at him, he's gazing at the sea as if it holds some big secret he's trying to unlock.

"Are you OK?" she asks, and he looks round, his grey eyes startled, and says:

"I was thinking about Sherlock." Then his hand goes up to his head and he almost shouts, " _Shit_. I didn't mean that, Sarah. I'm sorry, I really am–"

"It's OK," she says, and her fingers reach up to trace the anxious lines appearing on his face. "What are you worried about?" Something's been bugging John all day, hasn't it? Maybe if she can help solve the mystery, they'll be able to enjoy themselves properly. 

"Sherlock...he said he was going to Washington, but there's something wrong. Something obvious I haven't spotted..."

"What was he going to do there? Something to do with diplomats, did you say?"

John gives a sudden gasp. 

"You're wonderful, Sarah," he announces, and for a moment he looks happy. "That's what I missed. If it had been a problem at the embassy, Mycroft would have been involved and he'd have come round to talk to Sherlock in person. So if he didn't..." His voice tails off and the frown is back.

"Then he's doing something else," Sarah says, and wonders if she's about to make things worse. But she can't stop now, can she? "He might be in Washington, just not at the embassy. Are there any other clues?"

"He took lightweight clothing with him," John says. "Well, his lightest pairs of socks, at least."

Sarah's not going to ask how John knows so much about Sherlock's socks. "Anything else he took?"

" _Oh shit_ ," John says very, very quietly. "The sword." He unwraps his arm from round Sarah and stands up. Then he shuts his eyes and places his palms on his temples, as if he's trying to drag a memory out of his brain. Sarah sits there and waits, saying nothing.

"Sherlock has a sword in the living room," John says at last. "I think he got it during the Jaria diamond case. It's been sitting by the fireplace for the last week or so, like it's some kind of bizarre poker. But when I came down this morning it wasn't there."

"Are you sure?" Sarah asks.

"Yes," John says. "Sherlock's gone off somewhere hot and he's taken a sword with him."

As a pin-point deduction, it's a bit lacking, Sarah thinks. But as a statement it's distinctly alarming. There might be good reasons for Sherlock doing that without telling his best friend what he's up to, but she can't think of any of them offhand. No wonder John's subconscious has been plaguing him.

"What do you want to do?" she asks. "Is there someone you can contact, see if you can trace him?"

"If Sherlock's out of the country, Mycroft's the only one who can help," John replies. "But if I get him involved and it's a case Sherlock doesn't want him to know about, he'll never forgive me."

"Do you need to go back to Baker Street? There might be more clues there."

John shakes his head. "If there are, I won't be able to work them out. I'm no detective." He pulls his phone out of the pocket and checks it. "No messages. If he was in trouble, he'd get something through to me somehow."

 _If he was in trouble, you'd know about it anyhow_ , Sarah finds herself thinking. _You'd sense it, wouldn't you?_ But she suspects that John's nightmares will be starting up again all too soon. She wishes Sherlock was back here, just so she could strangle the thoughtless bastard with his own scarf.

She can't say that; instead she watches John, wishing she knew what to say. John stares out at the sea for a moment or two more, and then she sees his spine straighten and his chin go up as if he's come to a decision.

"Sherlock's on his own this time," he says, and there's a determination in his voice now that suggests he's also mentally giving two fingers to Sherlock. To her surprise, he turns to her and hands her his switched-off phone. 

"Did you say something about a hotel?" he asks, and she pockets his phone and stands up and wraps her arms round him. Then she blatantly gives his bum a squeeze, because this is Brighton and you're allowed to do things like that here.

"You said you had Sherlock's credit card," she says, grinning. "I'm expecting a suite at least." 

John grins back at her. It can't last, of course, between them. Tomorrow, John will be fretting about Sherlock, and she'll have to go home. They can't go back to being teenagers again; those days are gone for good.

But just for now – this night – they can do what they please in some anonymous hotel room. For now, they can have everything that either of them could desire.


End file.
